“Loving the Alien,” David Bowie; The Summer Hikaru Died, Episode 11; Kamonohashi Ron no kindan suiri, Chapter 114, Akira Amano; The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro; “Witch-wife,” Edna St. Vincent Millay; “Carmilla,” Sheridan le Fanu; “He seems to me equal to god,” by Sappho, translated by Anne Carson
I decided to set myself a challenge and draw my favorite characters for a poster of my favorite BBC series.
I honestly think this piece is one of the best I’ve ever done.
And of course, it features the title of my little project, which I’ve been working on since December.
I hope you're looking forward to more comics, because new pages are coming soon.
The inner cover characters, Amamiya, Vol. 13; Kawasemi Omito, Vol. 14; Dr. Usaki Mofu, Vol. 15; Spitz Feier, Vol. 16; Chikori Monki, Vol. 17; Winter Moriarty, Vol. 18; and last but not the least, Kiku-san, the Cupid to RonToto, the Mike Stamford of the RKDD universe. *
* like always, please link back if you are using the images.
why i think milo moriarty is a far more compelling and interesting villain than _____ is and will ever be.
cw: long post, rkdd manga spoilers and my opinions
so, let me reiterate. for me, milo is definitively a far more compelling and interesting villain than alice is and will ever be.
"but he shot toto!" AND I SAY GOOD! I AM GLAD HE SHOT TOTO! it gave us some of the most iconic chapters of cruise arc where only toto's voice broke through to ron while ron was experiencing his culprit killing compulsion. that was cinema!
milo made that happen! he went after the person ron cares about the most and actually hurt him. we saw him push ron to the very edge and almost coax ron to become a murderer even at the expense of his own life. THIS DIVA!
on a serious note, though, i think there is more to milo than meets the eye and it is made evident by the end of cruise arc. when he was first introduced, milo almost felt like a cartoon villain to me. even the initial reveal that the 'm' family targeted ron for being half-holmes half-moriarty was something i could not take seriously.
but you know what? the story made me take it seriously as each case leading up to the finale methodically revealed to us just how deep the hatred between the moriarty family and the holmes family goes. and just how much ron has been made to suffer for belonging to both families.
i think rkdd part 1, though it had the overarching goal of solving the mystery behind the bloody field trip incident, was also a journey of rediscovering himself for ron. his sense of who he is had been shattered when he was accused of mass murder and forbidden from detective work. in part 1, ron is learning to live again. he is a self-admitted piece of junk lost to time when toto finds him and with toto's support he dares to resume his work as a detective, the thing that he knows he was born to do.
but then, the auberge fire case happens where ron learns that he himself is a moriarty. the reveal is devastating to him and we see ron have a breakdown after which he tells toto he will give up being a detective.
i believe this is a crucial point where we learn that the notion of moriartys being inherently evil is not a belief limited to the 'm' family. ron believes this as well, so much so that just knowing he has moriarty blood running through his veins is enough to make him think he doesn't deserve to be a detective.
however, by the conclusion of the auberge arc, ron recalls memories of his father telling him to forge his own path. and with toto by his side, ron becomes resolute in who he is all over again! moriarty blood be damned, ron can choose what kind of person he is, just like his father before him. he doesn't need to be defined by either side of his ancestry because it is entirely up to him to decide the path he walks on.
and this is where i really start to contrast between ron and milo.
unlike ron who ultimately learns he can choose the kind of life he leads, milo is someone who is raised to believe that he has one set path that he is destined to walk on. as deep as the hatred between the moriarty family and holmes family goes, so is set in stone the belief that being a moriarty makes one an inherent monster.
from everything we know about the moriarty family in rkdd, it is reasonable to assume that all the moriarty children are indoctrinated with certain "truths" that the 'm' family believes to be absolute.
a moriarty is intrinsically cruel. a moriarty is inherently capable of evil. a moriarty is destined to a life of crime. a moriarty cannot be weak. a moriarty cannot fail. these are unquestioning beliefs all the moriarty siblings share whether it be milo, winter or alice.
but then a certain incident simultaneously challenges and strengthens these moriarty values. i am, of course, talking about milo shooting alice.
this event breeds animosity between milo and winter. and though winter does not explicitly defy the family, they do agonize over why it had to be this way. did their little sister truly deserve to be put to death for not being up to moriarty standards? did milo really need to kill her? whether consciously or not, simply having these questions and being angry with milo for alice's death is a sign that cracks had formed in those moriarty values winter had been fed their whole lives.
meanwhile, killing alice stands to be one of, if not the most ruthless act milo commits that solidifies his nature as a moriarty. he is someone who would not even spare his own defenseless little sister. killing alice strengthened his already unwavering belief that this is simply who he is destined to be.
and yet. as the climax of the cruise arc played out, milo's insistence on making a murderer out of ron starts to feel rather personal. up until that point, milo has consistently acted aloof, making it seem like he toys with ron simply because he can. because he wants to. but, when confronted with ron's resolve (propped up with toto's unwavering support of course) milo grows desperate.
at first he wants ron to kill toto. but when ron resists, he settles on himself as ron's target. if it meant making a murderer out of ron kamonohashi, his own life is something milo is willing to give up.
but we all know what happens next. ron chooses to hurt himself rather than become a murderer. even if the one he has to kill is milo moriarty, ron chooses himself and his pride as a detective.
and then we see milo admit to himself that he is a failure and as he jumps off the ship, into his certain death, his last thought is of the little sister whose life he had taken with his own hands.
and can i just say once again how this was ABSOLUTE CINEMA. it's so fucking perfect I LOVE CRUISE ARC SO FUCKING MUCH PELASE GOD BRING THE GOOD TIMES BACK TO ME
now, you can say that this is hindsight but i believe that this "ending" for milo had already left more than enough room to speculate things that are later confirmed in part two i.e. deep down milo has always felt guilty for killing alice. all the murders that he orchestrated on the cruise were such that, between a pair of loved ones, one person had to let the other person die. milo was essentially recreating what had happened with alice, putting others through the same pain that he had been.
and this is what i think is genius whether it was intentional or not. the very thing that was meant to establish milo as a ruthless moriarty monster by nature is actually what ends up revealing his humanity.
because guess what? he was remorseful. he always had been. he regretted killing alice as soon as he had pulled the trigger. we learn this last detail much later in part two but it didn't come as a surprise to me at that point.
i believe when milo is faced with ron's resolve to not become a murderer to the point that ron would rather hurt himself, he is also confronted with the fact that this is a moriarty who can and is refusing to embrace their so-called nature of being a monster. and if a moriarty is capable of defying their nature, then what he had done to his little sister... was it really something he had no choice in?
all this is not to say that milo's outwardly spoken motives aren't true, by the way. ron being half holmes and the 'm' family's hatred of the holmes being why ron is targeted still holds true. milo thinking of himself as a failure for not being able to turn ron to the dark side is also true.
i just feel that taking into consideration how milo views his identity in relation to his ancestry gives us a deeper understanding of him as a character the same way it does for ron.
ron choosing what kind of person he is despite the blood that runs in his veins is a defining moment for him.
similarly, milo being bound by his belief that he is a monster for the mere fact he is a moriarty and then being confronted with the reality that even a moriarty can defy his destiny, it is a defining moment for him.
circling all of this back to why i don't think alice holds a candle to milo. unlike part one which had the overarching mystery of the bloody field trip connecting ron and milo, we don't have a similar thread that connects ron and alice. all we have had is the story constantly telling us instead of showing us that alice stands to rival ron. with milo, he knew more than ron and this fact alone gave him an upper hand and he constantly used this to keep ron on his toes.
compared to this, chapter 161 revealing alice's true intentions has been bizarre to say the least. alice, as a literal baby, comprehending her sick mother's ramblings about ron's father whom she loved, lost and later detested and alice seemingly preparing her whole life to confront ron as vengeance for her mother... it's all so incredibly convoluted that i'm still left speechless thinking about it.
milo was a better villain because he was rooted in reality. i don't believe he was smarter than ron, not from a deductive reasoning perspective at least. yet milo was clever in the way he used intel he knew and ron didn't. what better way to exercise power over a detective than withhold the clues that would lead to a mystery being solved? it's simple but incredibly effective.
even barring that, i feel like all the information we learned about the moriarty family in chapter 161, though it is meant to explore alice's motives, actually ends up making milo more interesting. at least to me.
alice having cognitive abilities as a baby because she is just so special and genius? sure, it's possible. it apparently is the case here. but milo being old enough to realize that their parents' marriage is a sham? very likely! quite a common occurrence in real life, if i may say so.
and with the added context that milo's mother was in love with ron's father, it makes the fact that milo's father had made milo aware of ron from a very young age even more unsettling. dario moriarty wasn't only scrutinizing his younger brother for marrying a holmes, he was watchful of eliot because he knew eliot is the man his wife really loved. and for these reasons, it was important to him that milo was primed to not only become the true moriarty heir but to confront ron someday.
chapter 161 just confirms to me that milo was always doomed to his fate. he stood no chance to turn out any other way given who is parents are and given his upbringing. he is brought up to believe that he is the villain of the story and he played that role like he was born for it because he genuinely believes that, that is his purpose.
does it absolve milo of anything he has done thus far? nope. he is still a criminal and has orchestrated the suffering of many, not just ron. he has done reprehensible things and it was his choice to do those things. that doesn't change even if we were to better understand how he came to be who he is.
at the end of the day, ron is a child born out of love and the defiance to keep and nourish that love while milo is a child born from the absence of love and is a product of coercion (i.e. it is heavily implied his father did something to his mother to get her to comply into marriage which is really dark if you think about it).
even in this way, milo and ron seem to stand face to face but on opposite sides, contrasting each other.
i think when it comes down to it, milo's writing works because part one of rkdd as a whole was better thought out than whatever is happening in part two. even if you ignore all my word vomit about milo and ron being opposites and their view of their own identities with regards to their ancestry being interesting, part one still stands on its own two feet as a detective story first and foremost.
i sincerely cannot say the same about part two, especially since everything to do with alice feels so contrived. it feels like the story is more interested in telling us alice is this or that, than presenting a detective story that makes sense.
ok that's the end of my post. bye! :)
as for milo, my genuine hope is that he is killed off. i am being incredibly serious. i would rather he gets off screened than have him act uncharacteristically the way other characters have been, especially if it is to inflate alice's so-called genius.
would a redemption arc be interesting for milo? sure. but i personally don't think it's necessary nor do i particularly want that. i like this fucked up little guy just the way he is, you see. i see him neck deep in his sins and i am holding my phone to his face, taking multiple photos on burst mode as i tell him, "you go sweetie! you did those crimes so well!" etc etc
Ever since Akira-sensei revealed Ron's age, I've always been curious about the other characters ages, especially the M family, since they don't even have an age range to go off of, however in some chapters from part two of the series, we finally get some clues to use...so here are those clues and my little analysis
*If I get anything wrong in this analysis, I apologize in advance
*Beware of spoilers (ch.96 and onwards)
I'm focusing on Mylo, Winter and Alice, since they're the ones currently alive in the series, and also the ones we have more info about.
First is to make sure we're all on the same page, even if most people probably know this
From Chapter 72
Mylo's the first child, Winter is the fourth, and Alice is the fifth and final one, with 5 of them (plus teo and the other one who died in a feud or something), for the ages to make sense, there atleast needs to be a one year age gap between each of them (because it wouldn't make much sense for their parents to give birth twice in a year, and we're counting 9-10 months as a year btw)
Next is...
Alice Moriarty's age reveal
From Chapter 115
From here we can tell that, she's probably 16-17. she says that she was going to take over the M family at age 17, but "six months before that" Mylo got defeated by Ron.
With that, now is the time to pinpoint where we are in the timeline right now, first is when the cruise incident happened
From Chapter 96
October 25th would've been when the cruise arc ended, aka the "six months before that" Alice mentions, with the "that" meaning the day she turns 17. With all of this we can assume her birthday to be around April, which is close enough to Mylo's birthday(March), so it's probably okay to not take their birthdays into consideration, since they would turn one year older around the same time.
*Assuming she's roughly 16 years and 9 months old, we can round that up to 17 since we don't need to consider the months
In conclusion, Alice is probably 17 years old
From the same panel from Chapter 115, the line "That's the same age as when you became head of the family", tells us that, Mylo was 17 when he became the head of the moriarties, in a later scene we learn that, that's the same age he was when he shot Alice dead (or rather, attempted to do so)
From Chapter 115
Even though this doesn't really help us right now, I still thought I should mention it, just in case it was ever mentioned at what age did Alice supposedly "die". Though I don't recall it ever being specified.
With Alice's age and the one year age gap between all siblings, we can get a rough estimate of-
What age do each of the Moriarty siblings need to be atleast?
*Basically, the youngest they can possibly be
Mylo 21
The second son 20
Teo 19
Winter 18
Alice 17
It would look something like this, but then in a later chapter, this is said
From Chapter 146
Mylo is confirmed to be the one behind the bloody field trip (the one in charge of it), which means, atleast 5 years would have had to pass after he became head of the M family, which would make him atleast 22 in the current timeline
Finally, Winter being the 4th child, would need to be atleast one year older than Alice, and atleast 3 years younger than Mylo, which would make Winter around 18 or 19 years old
From Chapter 72 (this isn't important,I just think they all look adorable in the flashbacks)
In conclusion,I think that Alice is 17 yrs old, while Mylo is probably 22 yrs old, and winter's probably 18 or 19 yrs old.
Than again let me remind you all, that except for Alice, these are just the ages they atleast need to be
However I think there is definitely more to this, since I don't actually think only 5 years passed after Mylo became the head of the M family, I mean it's hard to believe that the first thing he did after becoming the leader, was to make Ron's life miserable, not to mention since Ron is canonically 23, this begs the question, is Mylo older than Ron or younger than Ron ? And also, is he older than Toto ? Or maybe even Spitz ?
That's when you come in, if you have any thoughts about this, whether you have evidence from the manga or if it's just a headcanon, I'd like to hear what everyone has to say about this, so please share your thoughts
Really bummed that my transfem Winter Moriarty headcanon is actively in disagreement with canon
Incredibly thrilled that this is the case because Winter is, canonically, transmasc
"The Moriarty family's fourth son," "he's with the M family," "Mr. Moriarty:"
In childhood Winter in a dress, and Winter in a skirt:
(It does mean I have to go through a few WIPs to find & replace pronouns though. I was gonna make readers ball with my transfem headcanons but hell, transmasc canon is good for me!)
